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On April 09 2025 21:06 Harris1st wrote: I can really only think of two possbile countermeasures to cheap drones. Lasers and EMP and both seem to be far from advanced enough at this stage. Possibly some sort of directed magnetic field can pull the drones but since they are basically 90% plastic, it doesn't seem ideal. Maybe some sort of huge trawl pulled by helicopters?
If the drones are radio controlled, then ECM is also a thing that can work, especially since cheap drones probably won't be very hardened in that regard. You don't have to kill the drone if you can stop it from communicating. Of course, that doesn't work with cabled drones, but those have other limitations.
Edit: From what a guy who worked in the military told me, there are modern vehicles which basically have a button that says that no one else in the area can use their phone (and similar stuff). Something like that would probably work very well against cheap drones.
I don't doubt that small Drones will remain important. What I doubt is that they will remain as a big tool to deliver payloads like we see now once counter measures are more developed. Right now they are clearly awesome bang for the buck but thats probably because the counter measures are designed to fight off way more expensive stuff. I mean... If their size would be the issue you could also start training bomb pigeons en masse.
I didn't really count Helicopters to the Airforce but my more "into military stuff" friends told me some time ago, that Hellicopters are and were awesome (basically super fast flying tanks) but also very, very expensive to the point that most forces have stopped spending much on developing them due to a weakness to fighters (which Ukraine lacks). When it comes to opressing a force that lacks appropriate answers they are a nightmare to deal with.
On April 10 2025 00:32 Sent. wrote: What is supposed to make lasers better than traditional projectiles at shooting small drones down?
Energy travels quite a lot faster than steel, has a much higher rate of fire ceiling, has a much greater range, a near limitless ammunition stockpile, and a much much lower cost per shot.
It's really the perfect solution once the tech is there.
On April 10 2025 00:32 Sent. wrote: What is supposed to make lasers better than traditional projectiles at shooting small drones down?
the problem with small drones is hitting them. Light traveling in a (practically) strait line at near instant speed makes hitting a lot easier then relatively slow, curving bullets.
On April 10 2025 00:32 Sent. wrote: What is supposed to make lasers better than traditional projectiles at shooting small drones down?
the problem with small drones is hitting them. Light traveling in a (practically) strait line at near instant speed makes hitting a lot easier then relatively slow, curving bullets.
Not just hitting them, but hitting all of them during a saturation attack with a cost per kill below $50k. Rheinmetall will happily sell you a projectile that'll hit a drone but you wouldn't want to buy a million rounds of it.
Watch this, russians are spineless and all they're good at is sticking their head in the sand when everything around them is burning and their president is a mass murderer. The indifferent attitude to the government system that's obviously broken is staggering. Russians seem completely hopeless of their countries future after 3 years of war.
On April 10 2025 00:56 Copymizer wrote: Watch this, russians are spineless and all they're good at is sticking their head in the sand when everything around them is burning and their president is a mass murderer. The indifferent attitude to the government system that's obviously broken is staggering. Russians seem completely hopeless of their countries future after 3 years of war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW9xow0NGlA&ab_channel=kgbdetected
Yeah, think it would be pretty laughable for people in the US to make this critique though. I've heard almost all those responses almost verbatim from people in the US.
On April 10 2025 00:32 Sent. wrote: What is supposed to make lasers better than traditional projectiles at shooting small drones down?
Also lasers don't care about weather conditions, wind, etc. So basically lasers are better in every way possible
On April 09 2025 21:24 KT_Elwood wrote: Electronic warfare would try to cut the drones off from their operators (jamming) or try to directly FRY the internal electronics with bursts.
I honestly doubt cheap drones will be operated by humans in the near future. They are one-way anyway. Give them a target and let them fly They probably still need some sort of GPS which can be tempered with if they want to be precise. Otherwise you just programm them to fly 40km in that direction then explode. Weather will make them unprecise but if send enough, some will hit
On April 09 2025 21:24 KT_Elwood wrote: Electronic warfare would try to cut the drones off from their operators (jamming) or try to directly FRY the internal electronics with bursts.
I honestly doubt cheap drones will be operated by humans in the near future. They are one-way anyway. Give them a target and let them fly They probably still need some sort of GPS which can be tempered with if they want to be precise. Otherwise you just programm them to fly 40km in that direction then explode. Weather will make them unprecise but if send enough, some will hit
Exploding things is just one part of what drones do for you. A lot of drone usage is about getting information, and for that communication is key.
Also, there are a lot of disadvantages to laser, too. They very much care about weather, just about other parts of it. They are pretty bulky for what they do due to their power demands (There is a reason that they are often designed for ships). And, most importantly, we don't actually have ones that work very well yet afaik.
That is not to say that lasers aren't useful, clearly a lot of very smart military people assume that lasers will have some use in the near future.
Afaik the iranian drones operate this way. They may use sat nav but switch to internal guidance and then just fly until they (think to have) reached a target area and suicide in the highest building.
Internal guidance in atmosphere is afaik not to great since you stack uncertainty upon uncertainty about how you flight path was alterered.
On April 10 2025 00:32 Sent. wrote: What is supposed to make lasers better than traditional projectiles at shooting small drones down?
Also lasers don't care about weather conditions, wind, etc. So basically lasers are better in every way possible
On April 09 2025 21:24 KT_Elwood wrote: Electronic warfare would try to cut the drones off from their operators (jamming) or try to directly FRY the internal electronics with bursts.
I honestly doubt cheap drones will be operated by humans in the near future. They are one-way anyway. Give them a target and let them fly They probably still need some sort of GPS which can be tempered with if they want to be precise. Otherwise you just programm them to fly 40km in that direction then explode. Weather will make them unprecise but if send enough, some will hit
Exploding things is just one part of what drones do for you. A lot of drone usage is about getting information, and for that communication is key.
Also, there are a lot of disadvantages to laser, too. They very much care about weather, just about other parts of it. They are pretty bulky for what they do due to their power demands (There is a reason that they are often designed for ships). And, most importantly, we don't actually have ones that work very well yet afaik.
That is not to say that lasers aren't useful, clearly a lot of very smart military people assume that lasers will have some use in the near future.
Good point. I was mainly thinking about Kamikaze drones here.
I assumed that lasers will get better, more efficient and smaller in the future. Obviously we are a long way from a Star Wars type laser handgun but a laser mounted on some small mobile land vehicle I can absolutely see in the next decade. The Brits already have "Dragonfire", a 50KW laser than can eliminate targets in a radius of about 1km for 10 bucks a shot.
Another ignorant question from me. Forgive me if I’m missing something obvious.
So the current administration would never protect Ukraine if it invoked article 5. So in many ways NATO membership isn’t helpful to Ukraine beyond European assistance like Poland, France, and Germany.
If a “peace plan” from the US stipulates Ukraine won’t be in NATO, what difference does it really make? If European nations can craft their own defense partnerships and protocols with Ukraine, and the US is out of the picture anyway, does Ukraine really have any benefit to holding on to NATO membership as a goal? My impression is it’s essentially all the same so long as Trump is in office.
On April 22 2025 00:54 Mohdoo wrote: Another ignorant question from me. Forgive me if I’m missing something obvious.
So the current administration would never protect Ukraine if it invoked article 5. So in many ways NATO membership isn’t helpful to Ukraine beyond European assistance like Poland, France, and Germany.
If a “peace plan” from the US stipulates Ukraine won’t be in NATO, what difference does it really make? If European nations can craft their own defense partnerships and protocols with Ukraine, and the US is out of the picture anyway, does Ukraine really have any benefit to holding on to NATO membership as a goal? My impression is it’s essentially all the same so long as Trump is in office.
NATO is just shorthand for membership in an alliance with credible deterrence. It can be a successor to NATO (without the US and Hungary), but it could also be the EU.
On April 22 2025 00:54 Mohdoo wrote: Another ignorant question from me. Forgive me if I’m missing something obvious.
So the current administration would never protect Ukraine if it invoked article 5. So in many ways NATO membership isn’t helpful to Ukraine beyond European assistance like Poland, France, and Germany.
If a “peace plan” from the US stipulates Ukraine won’t be in NATO, what difference does it really make? If European nations can craft their own defense partnerships and protocols with Ukraine, and the US is out of the picture anyway, does Ukraine really have any benefit to holding on to NATO membership as a goal? My impression is it’s essentially all the same so long as Trump is in office.
NATO is just shorthand for membership in an alliance with credible deterrence. It can be a successor to NATO (without the US and Hungary), but it could also be the EU.
Yeah, I suppose to be more concise, I don't see why Russia would consider it a win to prevent NATO if EU did something similar. No matter how you slice it, war with everyone other than the US is still catastrophic for Russia. And so I don't think its enough for Russia. I think in reality they want even more than preventing NATO.
Europe is incapable of anything bigger than Libyan airstrike intervention and that didn't go as smoothly as planned. Removing the US from calculation gives Russian strategists way more breathing space when they're diving into their delusions about rebuilding the Soviet union (which totally wasn't just Russian Empire 2.0).
On April 22 2025 00:54 Mohdoo wrote: Another ignorant question from me. Forgive me if I’m missing something obvious.
So the current administration would never protect Ukraine if it invoked article 5. So in many ways NATO membership isn’t helpful to Ukraine beyond European assistance like Poland, France, and Germany.
If a “peace plan” from the US stipulates Ukraine won’t be in NATO, what difference does it really make? If European nations can craft their own defense partnerships and protocols with Ukraine, and the US is out of the picture anyway, does Ukraine really have any benefit to holding on to NATO membership as a goal? My impression is it’s essentially all the same so long as Trump is in office.
NATO is just shorthand for membership in an alliance with credible deterrence. It can be a successor to NATO (without the US and Hungary), but it could also be the EU.
Yeah, I suppose to be more concise, I don't see why Russia would consider it a win to prevent NATO if EU did something similar. No matter how you slice it, war with everyone other than the US is still catastrophic for Russia. And so I don't think its enough for Russia. I think in reality they want even more than preventing NATO.
Their goal is to break us from within. They're betting on Orbans and Le Pens to break the EU or render it dysfunctional.
On April 22 2025 01:23 Sent. wrote: Europe is incapable of anything bigger than Libyan airstrike intervention and that didn't go as smoothly as planned. Removing the US from calculation gives Russian strategists way more breathing space when they're diving into their delusions about rebuilding the Soviet union (which totally wasn't just Russian Empire 2.0).
Europe has massively expanded its capabilities since 2022.
On April 22 2025 00:54 Mohdoo wrote: Another ignorant question from me. Forgive me if I’m missing something obvious.
So the current administration would never protect Ukraine if it invoked article 5. So in many ways NATO membership isn’t helpful to Ukraine beyond European assistance like Poland, France, and Germany.
If a “peace plan” from the US stipulates Ukraine won’t be in NATO, what difference does it really make? If European nations can craft their own defense partnerships and protocols with Ukraine, and the US is out of the picture anyway, does Ukraine really have any benefit to holding on to NATO membership as a goal? My impression is it’s essentially all the same so long as Trump is in office.
NATO is just shorthand for membership in an alliance with credible deterrence. It can be a successor to NATO (without the US and Hungary), but it could also be the EU.
Yeah, I suppose to be more concise, I don't see why Russia would consider it a win to prevent NATO if EU did something similar. No matter how you slice it, war with everyone other than the US is still catastrophic for Russia. And so I don't think its enough for Russia. I think in reality they want even more than preventing NATO.
Their goal is to break us from within. They're betting on Orbans and Le Pens to break the EU or render it dysfunctional.
Agreed. Also important to not that they are not just passively betting on that, but also actively pushing towards it.
Our most important defense goal needs to be to protect ourselves from the russian interference. Military defense is relevant, but only after we made sure that we are not dissolved from the inside by russian PsyOps and their useful idiots.
On April 22 2025 00:54 Mohdoo wrote: Another ignorant question from me. Forgive me if I’m missing something obvious.
So the current administration would never protect Ukraine if it invoked article 5. So in many ways NATO membership isn’t helpful to Ukraine beyond European assistance like Poland, France, and Germany.
If a “peace plan” from the US stipulates Ukraine won’t be in NATO, what difference does it really make? If European nations can craft their own defense partnerships and protocols with Ukraine, and the US is out of the picture anyway, does Ukraine really have any benefit to holding on to NATO membership as a goal? My impression is it’s essentially all the same so long as Trump is in office.
NATO is just shorthand for membership in an alliance with credible deterrence. It can be a successor to NATO (without the US and Hungary), but it could also be the EU.
Yeah, I suppose to be more concise, I don't see why Russia would consider it a win to prevent NATO if EU did something similar. No matter how you slice it, war with everyone other than the US is still catastrophic for Russia. And so I don't think its enough for Russia. I think in reality they want even more than preventing NATO.
Their goal is to break us from within. They're betting on Orbans and Le Pens to break the EU or render it dysfunctional.
Agreed. Also important to not that they are not just passively betting on that, but also actively pushing towards it.
Our most important defense goal needs to be to protect ourselves from the russian interference. Military defense is relevant, but only after we made sure that we are not dissolved from the inside by russian PsyOps and their useful idiots.
I know this is a wildly unpopular take, but Europe throwing voters a bone by making a significant change to immigration policies would reduce Russia's psyops capabilities more than anything else.
Doesn't need to be some MAGA dogshit, But something that meaningfully makes voters feel heard regarding immigration would deeply harm all these Russia-sponsored "movements"
EPT
